Get dog costumes wrote:Greg Ginn is often considered a terrible soloist

Good LORD! By who?!? Point out the heathens! Point them out I say!

Robert Quine's solo in "Blank Generation", not mention many more Quine/Julian solos on that record and of course, the solos of Andy Cohen, Ginn, Verlaine/Lloyd, Neil Young &c. brilliant soloists in their own right. Brett Eugene Ralph's comments w/r/t to soloing were dead-on the money, as usual.

I will quibble w/ Steve's assesment of his own soloing and point to "Canada" (which I've always thought was an excellent Young-esque solo and one of my favorites) and the solo on "Canaveral" as two excellent examples.

but shit, even if every single other guitar solo in the history of recorded music was terrible, Quine tearing into "Blank Generation" would redeem the entire enterprise. Sublime.

guitar solo: not crap

steve wrote:Yanni Papadopoulous (Stinking Lizaveta)

I had the pleasure of playing with these guys 4 nights in a row in 2002, and Yanni P's guitar playing is so very much not crap that it would force my hand on this vote alone.

Was also going to mention Robert Quine, but I see The Classical already has that covered.

When they are pulled off, they are beautiful things. When they are performed by wankers, they are awful, but such is the way of life. Guitar solo, my friend, you are not crap.

As with most things, at least 95% of all solos are bad, awful, frighteningly so at times. But for the good moments, the guitar solo can be one of the most not crap things in life.


Peter Svensson of the Cardigans. Great and tasteful soloing. 'Sick and Tired' has my favourite guitar solo of all time.

Also, the aforementioned Neil Young and Tom Verlaine.

I presume Kim Deal did most of the solos for the breeders and the amps. Those records are littered with great solos.

Joey Santiago.

Matt Pike on 'Dopesmoker' solos like a titan.

On WGN Radio (720 AM, Chicago), every Wednesday night you can hear the greatest guitar solo of all time. Perhaps this is available to listen to live on the internet, as well. I believe it happens at 11pm, or shortly thereafter.

On Wednesday nights, the "Steve and Johnnie Show" becomes "Web Site Wednesday", and they have a custom-made theme song for the event. It is a strangely catchy piece of music, and about a minute into the song the lyrics stop and it becomes a blistering, poorly executed guitar solo wherein the player attempts every guitar solo cliche known to the form, all within the space of about 90 seconds. It is breathtaking: hamfisted, ill-conceived, completely around the bend.

I am going to attempt to either record this beast or, with any luck, persuade Steve and Johnnie to let me hear the whole thing (I suspect the version on the radio is heavily abridged). If I am able, I will pass this gem along to all of you.

Please... Someone say they know what I'm talking about...

I really like what Kurt Cobain did with guitar solos, often just playing a slight variant on the vocal melody line. Conversely, I really like what Slayer did with guitar solos, making a raucous and insane mess of shreddy noise. I think just about any style of "rock" music can be made better by (maybe occasional) soloing in whatever style is appropriate to the song. Buddy Holly knew how to play a solo right. Jeff Buckley.

I'm going to now ruin everything I've said (if it even needs ruining) and say that I dig the solo from the song "Cult of Personality" by Mr. Vernon Reid of the band Living Color. Colour? Color? I can hear this solo in my head easily, and I love it. And I think it only made that song stronger.

Oh yeah, and um, Les Paul was dumb or something, especially the Les Paul Trio stuff. Solos everywhere! Solos suck!

endofanera wrote:

Get dog costumes wrote:Greg Ginn is often considered a terrible soloist

Good LORD! By who?!? Point out the heathens! Point them out I say!

Mark Prindle, Dean of American Rock Critics wrote:Although Greg Ginn is one of the absolute worst guitar soloists ever born, he was capable of coming up with some very unique lead melodies (especially on Damaged and In My Head) as well as possessing a bizarre recording finesse utilizing multi-tracking and reverb to such an extent that even when the music was dull (as on 1984's Slip It In), the sound was still gear enough to warrant three or four good listens. [link]

Thanks to reader comments, that page has testimony from dozens of Ginn apologists and detractors. I mostly side with the latter. Ginn's style as a "lead guitarist" a la Hendrix or Ed King--a rhythm player in the sense that he holds down the riff, but a lead player in that he breaks away from the riff periodically for fills, leads, and solos, but then returns to the riff--is great, but a lot of his solos are long-winded and lack direction. This is is more of a problem on the later albums, and it's a disaster on his post-Flag stuff. Unfortunately, I bought "Dick" in the $2 bin at Amoeba last year, and it is the worst album I have ever owned, though pointless solos are hardly its biggest problem.

Robin

Get dog costumes wrote:Unfortunately, I bought "Dick" in the $2 bin at Amoeba last year, and it is the worst album I have ever owned, though pointless solos are hardly its biggest problem.

I sometimes like to pretend that all the members of Black Flag went to their simultaneous deaths in a Patty Hearst/SLA-style terrorist bank robbery, rather than breaking up so they could produce shit like Gone and "Liar."



It's a selfish fantasy, I know; everyone has the right to produce crappy art and not die because of my disappointment. But it does tie my love of that band and my dis-love of many of the things they later ended up doing together into a nice neat pile.

I guess I'm glad life isnt so neat.

And I dont care what Mr Prindle says, the later Black Flag records are lovely, inside and out.

endofanera wrote:

Get dog costumes wrote:Unfortunately, I bought "Dick" in the $2 bin at Amoeba last year, and it is the worst album I have ever owned, though pointless solos are hardly its biggest problem.

I sometimes like to pretend that all the members of Black Flag went to their simultaneous deaths in a Patty Hearst/SLA-style terrorist bank robbery, rather than breaking up so they could produce shit like Gone and "Liar."

They don't have to die if you just switch their post-Flag careers around a bit. Had Rollins become a humble pastor in British Columbia while Chavo Pederast went on to do $20-a-ticket spoken word tours and brag about banging strippers in interviews, no one would complain about either of them. Same thing if Ginn ended his musical career with class and moved to Colombia in 1987 while Robo stayed in L.A. to steer SST through the Negativland debacle and release 20 solo albums.

I think Bill Stevenson and Kira are the only two that have made post-Flag music that is not hated. Rollins did a good job on the last ten seconds of "Liar," though.

Brett Eugene Ralph wrote:Both solos on Thin Lizzy's "Cowboy Song" are amazing--badass, to be sure, but also controlled and melodic and wholly integrated into the fabric of the song. This, it seems to me, is the key to an effective solo--that it complements and enhances the song rather than the song becoming a foundation for the soloist's flights of fancy. Greg Ginn straddles this fine line precariously--and thrillingly. So does Jimi Hendrix.

Some outstanding solos occur not as "leads" but as solo passages played underneath the song proper, such as Cheetah Chrome's fills on the last chorus of "Not Anymore" or that wigged out shit Lindsey Buckingham does on the tag-out of "You Make Lovin' Fun," some of my favorite guitar playing ever.

Bill Dolan seems to effusively do this throughout all of his stuff, why doesn't he release more? Jeremy Jacobson can pick a cheap ass guitar while doing tap and sound like an amalgam of the best nashville pickers and african steeldrumerss combined.